Dark Data and AI

Data is the fuel for AI. So this week, we are diving into dark data and AI.

Over the holiday break, I discovered a gigantic archive of music – sheet music, in a text-based format called ABC notation – from the 1500s to the 1800s. This sheet music is all stuff that’s in the public domain, far outside any copyright, which means yuo can safely use it with AI or any other content system and not violate anyone’s intellectual property rights.

What’s really interesting about it is that these are melodies that probably have not been heard by many people since the centuries they were written. They’re the epitome of something Trust Insights has called dark data since day one, since the day we opened our doors.

Dark data is data you have that you don’t know you have, or you don’t know what to do with it. It just sits there, taking up space. In the case of old sheet music from eras past, it doesn’t take up much space, but it’s still not data in motion, data in use.

This is where generative AI comes into play. You can, if you have the tools and processes and knowledge, convert that old music into a format that AI can read. A tool like Suno can take an existing audio file and use it as inspiration for a remix. Suddenly, a piece of data that looks like this:

X:50
T:Pretty Girls of Monaghan.
M:C
L:1/8
Z:Transcribed by Peter Dunk 2015
B:Alexander’s 50 New Scotch & Irish Reels and Hornpipes, ca1825
Q:1/4=140
K:D
A|dBAF D2 DF|GFGA BEEc|dBAF DFAF|GBAG FD D:|
|:A|(dc).d.e f2 ed|(e^d)ef eBBc|defg a2 gf|faeg fd d:|
|:d|BdAd BdAd|Bdfd ge e2|Bdce dfeg|fbag fd d2:|

Becomes something that sounds like this, brought to life again by AI:

The key lesson here is that if you want to use AI in ways that other people can’t, start looking at your dark data. What do you have laying around in all the places you store data that you could transform and bring back to life in new, different, and exciting ways?

When everyone else is doing exactly the same thing with AI, you can differentiate yourself with the data you already have that no one else has or doesn’t know how to work with.

Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.